In The New Year

I did not mean to disappear like that but things got kinda busy here over the New Year holiday. An old friend called and wanted to visit, so I cooked the traditional veggies and he brought the pork chops, which we grilled. He insisted on helping me around the house and although I hate to say, 'yeah, come work for me!', I was grateful for the second pair of hands and friendly company. Especially since he knows how to get a contrary Bobcat cranked when the battery in it has gone bad. We discovered that the battery had cracked and most of the water ran out. Not good. So, we borrowed the battery out of Oliver and ran the Bobcat off that. Yeah Allen, if you are reading, I'm going to put it back just as soon as I can get Tommy to bring me a new battery!
I insulated the new duct work I ran from the wood stove to the living room. Let me tell you, that makes a huge difference, so if you haven't done yours you might want to look into that. Just saying. Anyway, Grendal discovered the hole in the floor that releases hot air and now it's a challenge to keep her big butt off the thing so the room gets warmed.
More work continued on the window. I know this looks like a mess and ...well, it is. If you build a window using came instead of copper foil, you have to grout the joints where the glass fits into the channels. This makes the window weather proof and more structurally sound. The grout is a thick, black, oily goo that you just have to scrub into the joints with your hands.
Then you sprinkle the window with whiting and scrub again with a stiff brush. This helps absorb the oil and cleans up the excess grout. It also polishes the lead and zinc came and makes the whole window look finished.
With the Bobcat running, we went over to a neighbors pasture where they had a very large hickory tree fall on their fence. They had told me if I could get the tree off I could have the wood. He sawed it up for me and together we rolled the chunks down the hill and into the bucket of the Bobcat. The tree was so large we could only get about 4 sections of the trunk into the bucket at one time but we could then lift them right up and roll them out into the bed of my truck. I was grateful that he also split a good bit of wood but I will have to get out there and split some more this week as they are predicting a very cold week ahead and even more snow!!

As far as the 12 Days of Christmas, there are not really any traditions or such for the past couple of days but I do have one for tomorrow and of course, Tuesday, which is Epiphany. Although, according to the way some people count it, Epiphany is not until the 6th. At any rate, we are going to say it's Tuesday.